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Now Superintendent Phil Vickers, who is charge of the Boston area, has explained how the incident happened.

He told BBC Radio Lincolnshire it was an embarrassing event for the force.

He said: "The gentleman had been arrested on a European arrest warrant yesterday afternoon in Spalding. He was handcuffed to the front which would be a fairly normal position under these circumstances.

"The risk that we had assessed at that time was that he wasn't a risk to the officers. He was brought into Boston police station and as he was being removed from the vehicle he has made good his escape."

He added that police officers with dogs and a helicopter was dispatched but the force were unable to find Butkys.

He said: "At the end of the day he was placed in what would be the lowest form of restraint for us.

"We can put people in handcuffs in a number of different positions, behind their back, in front of them and in this case it was in front of him which was to limit his opportunity to assault the officers who were escorting him. But it makes it relatively more straight forward if he does try to escape.

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"In each case officers have to make an assessment to what is the proportionate use of force against someone that's been arrested and in this case we got it wrong.

"The most important message here is that we are satisfied that he isn't a risk to the wider public. The offence that he has been arrested for is an assault on a family member in Lithuania and we are satisfied that there isn't a risk to anyone but clearly we want to get him back into custody where he should be."

Mr Vickers added police are still looking for him in the Boston and Spalding area.

He added: "If any members of the public see him and whether he is still wearing those handcuffs or not we are keen to catch up with him.

"Handcuffs do limit your movement and your opportunities but in his case he has been quite fortunate, it may be that he has managed to remove the handcuffs by now but it's not a case where we are concerned for public safety but if anybody sees him then call us and we will go and pick him up.

"Last night we had a small geographic area that we could search and that's why we used the local officers, the dogs, and the helicopter. Boston CCTV were really helpful in ensuring we got a search on in the centre of Boston around the police station area. This morning we have got detectives looking at what the opportunities are.

"We know a little bit more about him so we know people that he associates with, places he goes and things that he does and we will be going out and looking for him there. We will be responding to information from the public."